Social Media plays a very important role in the success of a blog or an online business. If you are not taking the benefit of the people on various social networking sites then you are losing a lot of potential readers and customers.
You might have seen that even when you have a lot of fans on your Facebook page or a lot of followers on Twitter, your status update or tweet doesn’t get much attention and doesn’t get liked or shared or retweeted as much as you had expected. The reason behind this is that you are posting updates at the wrong time.
If you know the best times to post updates on social media sites then you will be able to reach a lot of people organically and you won’t have to give it the push by spending money on it.
Why Do You Need to Post on Social Media on Specific Time?
Do you always stay online on your favorite social network all day long or do you go online for a few specific hours every day?
No one stays online going through Facebook updates or Twitter tweets or looking at the pins on Pinterest. Everyone has a specific time set when they do all this stuff and if you know when your readers are the most active on these social media sites then you can take advantage of it by posting a new update.
In this article, we are going to talk about the best times to post latest updates on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Plus and Pinterest and promote your latest blog posts with your followers.
What will you learn in this post:
- Best Day and Time to Post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest.
- Some interesting facts and figures about the social networks.
- Links to resources and case studies.
- Which social network has higher engagement ratio that the others?
Best Times to Post on Facebook
Facebook is the biggest and the most popular social networking site that can give you millions of visitors and a lot of customers for your business.
If you know the best time to post an update or a photo on your Facebook page then you can easily get a lot of shares and engagement on your updates and photos. According to a study posted on BufferApp blog, the engagement rates on Facebook are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays compared to the other days of the week making them the best days to post a new update on your page.
However, if you are looking to reach a lot of your audience and potential customers by getting more shares from your followers then you should consider posting new updates on Saturday.
According to a study by Dan Zarella which was posted on KISSMetrics, Saturdays are the most popular days to get more number of shares on your updates.
Saturdays are the best days to get more shares on your posts and Thursdays and Fridays have 18% higher engagement rates compared to the other days but if you post daily then consider posting between noon to 1:00 PM to get more shares and around 3:00 PM to get more clicks.
Results:
- Best Time: Noon to 1:00 PM (EST), 3:00 PM for more clicks
- Best Days: Thursdays & Fridays for better engagement and Saturdays for better shares.
Best Times to Post on Twitter
When it comes to Twitter, not everyone is able to post the best tweets that attract more followers or retweets and clicks but when you choose the best time when your potential audience is online, you can make a big difference.
Twitter works on a simple principle – the more followers you have, the better are your chances of getting your tweet reach more audience. However, if you post amazing tweets, at regular intervals, you increase the chances of getting more retweets and thus you can reach more people who might be interested in the content of your tweets.
According to KISSMetrics and Dan Zarella, the best time to post on Twitter to get the most retweets is around 5:00 PM and the optimal amount of tweets should be 1-4 tweets per hour.
Also according to a study posted by Dan Zarella on his blog, you should tweet later in the day to get the highest CTR on your tweets. Weekdays provide more engagement than weekends while Twitter engagement for brands is 17% higher on weekends.
According to Twitter, users are 181% more likely to be on Twitter when they are commuting and are 119% more likely to use Twitter during school hours or working hours.
However to get the best click-through rates, you need to consider posting your tweets at 12:00 PM and then at 6:00 PM again.
You know the best time to tweet for the best result, but there is no particular best day to post your tweets. The best day depends on your audience and their preferences and can vary, however, Dan Zarella found that the tweets posted on Friday, Saturday and Sunday gets higher CTR than the rest of the week.
Note: Use FollowerWonk to analyze your followers to find the best time and day to post your tweets.
Results:
- Best Time: 12:00 PM & 6:00 PM for higher CTR, 5:00 PM for more retweets & 1:00-3:00 PM for more clicks.
- Best Days: Weekends
Best Times to Post on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is not like any other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter because the users are more business minded people. 93% of B2B marketers rate LinkedIn as the best social media lead generation source for B2B marketing.
According to AddThis, the best time to post on LinkedIn to get the most clicks and shares is between 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM and the best day would be Tuesday.
Since LinkedIn has B2B audience, the highest engagement rates are during weekdays and business hours. According to the post on Fannit, the best time to post on LinkedIn are 7:00-8:30 AM and 5:00-6:00 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the worst time would be on Mondays and Fridays at 9:00 AM to 5 PM.
Results:
- Best Days: Tuesday and Thursday
- Best Time: 7:00-8:30 AM and 5:00-6:00 PM (US based Time zones), 10:00-11:00 AM for more clicks and shares.
Best Times to Post on Instagram
Though Instagram is not looked upon as a great source of traffic, but there are people on the network who are taking advantage of the growing number of users to promote their business.
According to this post on Bloomberg, Instagram now has more than 300 million active users with 360K new users added daily and more than 70 million photos are shared each day!
Since the network is growing with every passing day, a lot of Fortune 500 companies are also sharing updates with their followers. According to a report published by TrackMaven, more than 24% Fortune 500 companies have Instagram accounts.
There is no particular “best day of the week” to post updates as the effectiveness remains consistent throughout the week but most of the companies post more on Thursdays and Mondays being the most effective days considering effectiveness per 1K followers.
The best time to update your Instagram account, according to the report are the work hours, Most of the Fortune 500 companies post more photos during business hours with the post spiking between 3:00-4:00 PM EST.
Note: The TrackMaven report was based on the analysis of 123 Instagram accounts of Fortune 500 companies and was published in September 2013 so the data might be different now. (Inputs taken from MarketingProfs.com article)
Results:
- Best Days: Monday
- Best Time: 3:00-4:00 PM
Best Times to Post on Google Plus
You have to know how to use Google Plus in order to drive traffic and create engagement with all your posts. You should be able to use proper hashtags, proper images and links and the posting time is also vital when looking to get the most benefits from it.
According to Buffer blog, the best time to share posts on Google+ is late morning, at around 9:00-11:00 AM, during the weekdays. The posts added at 9:00 AM on Wednesdays do best in terms of getting more engagement.
Result:
- Best Time: Late Mornings, 9:00-11:00 AM
- Best Days: Weekdays – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Best Times to Post on Pinterest
Pinterest is not a social network for every niche. Most of the users on Pinterest are women and the top category of the network is Food and 3/5th of all boards are food-related..
The reason you should start considering Pinterest as the best traffic source is that it generates over 400% more revenue per click over Twitter and 27% more than Facebook. Pinterest grabs 41% of eCommerce traffic while Facebook grabs 27%. The household income of an average Pinterest user is around $100,000 per year and it’s been estimated that 47% of online shoppers in US are likely to purchase an item recommended via Pinterest.
According to Fannit, the best time to post on Pinterest is on Saturday mornings, 2:00-4:00 PM and then at 8:00-11:00 PM.
The activity on Pinterest peaks at around 9:00 PM compared to other social networks, but the best time would be on Saturday mornings.
Result:
- Best Day: Saturday (In the Morning)
- Best Time: 2:00-4:00 PM, 8:00-11:00 PM
Note: If you want all the data in Infographic format, then you can check out this article on QuickSprout where all the data about the best time to post on social media is present in infographic format.
Wrapping Up:
When you know what time is the best to share an update on the social media sites, you will be able to get much better results from it. So now that you know the best time and the best days to post on social media, I hope that you will see positive results from your social campaigns.
In the end, I would like to say that if you liked the article then do leave a feedback letting us know your views on it and please share the post with your friends as well. Happy Blogging!
